In a series of clips released from Larry King’s internet-only show “Larry King Now,” “Real Time With Bill Maher” host Bill Maher sat down with King to lay out his views on vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), trickle-down economics and more.

In the first clip embedded below, Maher painted Paul Ryan as being an out-of-control compulsive liar. Calling Ryan “an interesting man,” Maher said, “He seems to have the moral core of the pimp from ‘Taxi Driver.’ This is a guy who will just say anything, I mean…wow. I thought Mitt Romney was a facile liar. This guy, you know, he even lies about his marathon times.”

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Maher also discussed his own and some liberals’ disappointment with Pres. Obama, but first tempered his remarks by saying to King, “I always said he wasn’t going to be Chocolate Jesus and he wasn’t,” meaning that many people set their expectation too high for the president, expecting him to perform miracles while being faced with unprecedented problems in the economy and the country at large.

However, according to Maher, “The two most egregious examples” of ways in which Obama has been disappointing are civil liberties and the drug war. However, attempting to blame the president for Guantanamo Bay, Maher said, is ridiculous. “He tried to close Guantanamo Bay,” he said, “Congress would not let him close Guantanamo Bay.”

In another clip, the host and comedian said that in his estimation, Americans are not incredibly bright.

“I have fears about the public listening to the debate,” he said. “I have fears about the American public, they’re not very bright.”

And when King asked him about the makeup of the modern Republican Party, Maher said, “There are no moderates in the Republican Party. They all believe in the fantasy world of trickle-down economics.” He said that the theory has been exposed as quackery twice before, once under Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush, and then again under President George W. Bush. “And it’s going to not work again.”

Most of the current deficit, he said, “is stuff that Bush bought and couldn’t pay for.” Obama only owns about 10 percent of that debt, by Maher’s reckoning, and that was money he had to spend “to dig out of the hole left by the last guy.”

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About the Author

David Ferguson is an editor at Raw Story. He was previously writer and radio producer in Athens, Georgia, hosting two shows for Georgia Public Broadcasting and blogging at Firedoglake.com and elsewhere. He is currently working on a book.